


apologize

by hanaku (all_game_no_life)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dolores and Grace are quite similar imo, Drabble, Five being sad in the apocalypse, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Thus this was born, my poor son :(, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27980760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_game_no_life/pseuds/hanaku
Summary: Five is seven. Five is seventeen. The word "sorry" always comes a little too late.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Grace Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	apologize

He is seven years old and he is at home and he is washing the dishes. He is doing so because Mom tells him that she needs his help, and while he would gladly disobey Dad, he will listen to Mom.

"Why do I have to wash the dishes?" he finds himself asking, because he is seven and seven year olds are like that, even if he doesn't want to be either of those things.

"Because you father said so, dear," Mom says, pinching his cheeks lightly, earning another pout from him. Her fingers are cold, soft yet metallic. Genius as he might be their father cannot make a robot come alive.

Some things cannot be imitated, although they act like they can. 

His mother does not mention why their father told him to do so in the first place-- both of them know it already.

"I didn't mean to get mad," he says, watching the bubbles move like clouds over his skin, too calloused for someone his age. "It just happens."

His mom smiles at him, lips covered with blood red lipstick that never gets smudged. "I know, sweetheart."

Five will never admit it, but he loves it when she calls him that. Sweetheart. She's the only one who has ever called him that.

"What do you say when that happens?" she now asks.

He purses his lips for a moment, thinking hard, before he remembers.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, fiddling with his hands, because while he might know the words, that doesn't make them any easier to say.

Mom doesn't seem to notice his hesitance. She does not mind his fiddling, either; does not tell him to sit still like Dad does, with a stern look and a tap of his cane.

"I forgive you," she says easily, softly, sweetly, and it lifts a weight off his chest he didn't know he had in the first place. 

After he finishes, Mom kisses him on the cheek, and while he is seven years old and he is well aware that robots cannot be alive and he is too old for kisses on the cheek-- just this once, he lets her.

* * *

He is seventeen years old and he is alone in a broken world and he is out of water, so he drinks alcohol.

He does not cry, because then he'll be even more dehydrated, and while he wanted to spend his seventeenth birthday at home-- with his siblings, with Pogo, with Dad, with Mom, with his _family_ \--

He has Dolores, and she will spend it with him, and that's just as good. 

~~_\--some things cannot be imitated--_ ~~

He wonders how old Dolores is now. She must be older than him. She hasn't aged a day since he found her, a unburnt, unhurt human face buried under piles and piles of rubble and ash, the first smiling face he saw since he got there, thrust into a burning wasteland where nothing could survive. 

He decides she's eighteen. Eighteen is a good age. Eighteen is when you're a proper adult, but not completely old, either. 

He tries not to think about the promises he had made with his siblings about _their_ 18th birthday-- how they'd go out to Griddy's, how they'd sneak drinks out of Dad's cabinet, how they'd go to the Bowling Alley that had just opened up down the street at the time.

"Oh," he says-- to Dolores, to himself, to no one really. "They already had their 18th birthday, right?" _Without me_. "I wonder what they did. I wonder what they did for their 17th birthday."

He feels his heart ache, because he is seventeen and seventeen year olds are like that, although he doesn't want to be either of those things.

Dolores is quiet. She gets quieter when their birthday comes around. He tries not to mind too much.

"I mean," he says, giving a dry laugh, trying to ignore the ache in his throat, gesturing to the rubble and the ash and the dust and the dust and the dust. "Hope it was better than mine, right?"

He takes a sip out of his bottle. Well. At least he can get drunk to his heart's content. That's one birthday wish fulfilled.

He likes to think Dolores laughs when he looks away, but the next time he looks at her, her lips are set in that blood red smile that she always wears. He loves it, loves looking at it. He hates it, wants to wipe it off her face.

He briefly thinks that Dolores looks like Mom. He tries to remember her, tries to remember her red lipstick and her gentle smile and the way she held his hand when he got scared sometimes. 

Fumbling with the movement a little bit, he takes Dolores's hand in his. He knows already, that there is no warmth to be found in those fingers, nothing but cold hard plastic. He knows, but.

But.

He remembers his mother's hands, washing the dishes next to him. He remembers how real she had felt, despite it all.

He remembers her lips against his cheek, warm and gentle and loving. 

"I'm sorry," he mumbles now, the words feeling easier than anything that he has ever done.

No reply comes.

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't make any sense, but I wanted to get something written for once. Also I love Five.


End file.
